Soldier, citizen
found peace
in forgiveness

Steve Henson is The Chieftainís managing editor. He can be reached at 544-0006, ext. 410; at shenson@chieftain.com; on Twitter @SteveHensonME.

by nick bonham
the pueblo chieftain

Published: December 8, 2013;Last modified: May 5, 2015 09:05PM

It might not appear at first glance that a retired Special Forces colonel who spoke in Pueblo this past week and Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s first black president who spent one-third of his life in prison because of apartheid, would have very much in common.

But they did. Each discovered peace and true meaning in their lives through a common thread: The power of forgiveness.

Ret. Col. Roger Donlon, who spoke at Colorado State University-Pueblo as part of the school’s Distinguished Speakers series, received the Medal of Honor for his heroism in Vietnam.

He was an Army captain leading a 12-man Special Forces detachment in Vietnam. On July 6, 1964, a Viet Cong contingent ambushed his training camp. The battle that followed for five hours left Donlon with multiple war wounds — and deeper wounds to his soul because he watched 54 of his comrades die as he waited for his own rescue — and earned him the Medal of Honor.

Donlon has been back to Vietnam several times. When he first returned in 1993, he wasn’t even sure why he went.

“I didn’t intend to go back and wasn’t searching for anything,” Donlon said in a 2003 interview with Stars and Stripes reporter Juliana Gittler, who wrote: “But to his surprise, he found returning helped him begin the process of reconciling his past.”

Making that 1993 trip with a group of U.S. civilians, he found his former camp and, buried near it, the cemetery of his Vietnamese allies who died in the ambush.

“I wanted to pay my personal respects to over 50 Vietnamese soldiers who lost their lives there,” Donlon told Stars and Stripes.

But while there, he met Nguyen Can Thu, the Viet Cong leader who had planned the attack on Donlon’s camp. To Donlon’s astonishment, Thu and several of his former guerillas helped clean up the cemetery.

The restoration of the cemetery persuaded Donlon that he needed to forgive his former enemies.

“His willingness to help was a signal to me of a new time,” Donlon told the Los Angeles Times in an interview. “That was the beginning for me.”

Back in the U.S., Donlon formed an educational foundation named after retired Army Gen. William C. Westmoreland, the commander of U.S. troops in Vietnam, and his wife, Kitsy.

“Donlon has said several times that he believes it is part of the American spirit to forgive.

Donlon has noted how Japan and Germany had thrived after World War II, and how both countries had become U.S, allies. He felt compelled to see if the same thing could happen in Vietnam.

MANDELA’S battle against white racism in South Africa landed him in prison for 27 years — an experience that would leave most people broken and bitter.

But after being released following intense pressure from other countries, Mandela reached out to his tormentors.

As president, he lunched with the prosecutor who sent him to prison. And he traveled hundreds of miles to have tea with the widow of the prime minister at the time of his imprisonment, a man who had been the architect of white rule.

Two remarkable men. A soldier who saw terrible things no man should have to see. A simple citizen tormented by his own country because he was black.

Somehow, the need for reconciliation washed over these men and transformed them. Their actions have spread the spirit of forgiveness to many others.